Ever since Thanksgiving I’ve been listening to the radio for my favorite novelty Christmas song, but I have yet to hear it.  It’s called Rusty Chevrolet, and the informal poll I’ve taken tells me that most of you have never heard of it.  The song is set to the tune of Jingle Bells and tells the story of a local yokel who slips and slides through the snow it his beat up old Chevy.  That song takes me back to another place and time: The snowy roads of my Michigan childhood.  Everyone my age and older can remember the days before Detroit figured out how to rust-proof cars.  Back then any car that was more than eight-years-old had big rust holes in the bottom of the doors, rotted rocker panels, and bumpers and other body parts tied on with bailing wire, bungy cords, and, of course, duct tape.  Our parents, and later we as teenagers, went slipping and sliding in those big old Buicks, and Oldsmobiles, and Chevies down icy two lane roads for about six months a year.  It may be an odd Christmas memory, but that stupid Rusty Chevrolet song takes me back to my childhood.  The song is a by a group called Da Youppers.  A Youpper is someone who lives in the UP or the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  As the tourism bumper sticker famously says, “Say ya to da UP, eh.”  Thinking of the UP reminds me of my favorite Youpper of all, a man named Bill.

Bill grew up in a small town in the Upper Peninsula.  One day a town father came to call on his widowed mother and told her that the Episcopal bishop was coming to town and that she ought to have her boys confirmed.  On the appointed day she had the boys scrubbed and dressed and in church and they were confirmed.  During coffee hour, the bishop asked the boys, “When were you baptized?”  “Ma, when were we baptized?” they asked. Of course, they never had been baptized.  So the bishop baptized them on the spot and said, “That’s not the way we usually do things, but it’ll work.”  In due course, Bill grew up, went away to college, and seminary, and then returned to the UP to serve as a parish priest under the old bishop who had confirmed and baptized him in backwards order.

The old bishop was a real mentor and father figure to Bill, and they were very close.  One day Bill was driving the bishop to a visitation and he asked him to pull over to the side of the road.  He said, “Bill, do you see that cow over there?”  “Yes, bishop.”  “What do you suppose that cow’s thinking about?”  “I don’t know, sir,”  “I don’t know either, Bill, but I bet he’s not thinking I wish I was a bishop and got to drive around in a big Oldsmobile.”  After a number of years the old bishop died, and Bill hurried across state to his funeral.  As he was driving to the cathedral he thought, “Everyone knows how close the bishop and I are; I bet I’ll get a big part in the funeral service.  Maybe I’ll be the master of ceremonies.  Maybe I’ll be the chief celebrant at the Eucharist.  Maybe I’ll preach the sermon.”  But by the time he got there all the parts were taken.  “Isn’t there anything I can do?”  he said.  “Well,” someone said, “We’re short an acolyte.  Do you want to be the crucifer?”  Bill was really hurt and put out but he did it.  As he reflected on this story later in his life, Bill had a change of heart and said, “I was honored to carry the cross for my bishop.”

Bill went on to become Bishop William Weidrich the suffragan bishop of Chicago, but he never forgot carrying the cross at his bishop’s funeral.  And he told that story again and again because it is at heart the Gospel story.  At Christmas the creator of the universe came to us not in strength and power but in humility, as a baby. He came to us helpless so that he could help us.  They laid him in a manger so that he could feed us.  They bound him in swaddling cloths so that he could free us.  He came down to earth so that he could raise us up to heaven.